All signs point to lengthy absence for Havlat, more on how Ferriero fits in — and that Tampa Bay trap

Before tonight’s game we should know more than we do now about the extent of the injury to Marty Havlat.

At 6:15, GM Doug Wilson is expected to provide information and that alone tells you that Havlat probably will not be in the lineup anytime soon. Wilson has a strictly enforced policy of trying to keep injury details as private as he possibly can — unless the absence is going to be extended.

What we do know is that it involves Havlat’s left hamstring and that this isn’t the first time the veteran forward has dealt with a hamstring problem.

Havlat said as much himself on Monday when he said his current problem was one he’d experienced before, though at the time the specific problem wasn’t mentioned.

An online check shows Havlat has had hamstring problems going back to November 2003, though none ever caused him to miss more than four games. His most recent came at the end of the 2009-10 season, however — just two games before the Minnesota Wild were finished, not having made the playoffs.

*****The fact that Benn Ferriero will be replacing Havlat is another indirect indication that Havlat might be out awhile. The next game Ferriero plays means he will have to clear waivers should the Sharks want to reassign him to Worcester. Would you want to take that risk if this were a one- or two-game stint?

“Waivers is just a reality of our business,” Wilson told me. “Benn went down (to Worcester) and played outstanding down there and he deserves the opportunity. He’s earned it on merit. To me when a player goes down and earns it on merit, we’ll deal with the other thing.”

Todd McLellan plans to use Ferriero on a line with Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski to take advantage of Ferriero’s offensive upside.

“As a coach, we were looking to replace an offensive guy with an offensive player and this is Benny’s opportunity,” McLellan said.

“A lot of times,” he added, “when you bring that type of player up, you plop them on the third line or you put him on the fourth line and it doesn’t always fit what his strengths are.”

*****The Tampa Bay Lightning found a lot of success last season with a 1-3-1 trap that drew much attention earlier this year when the Philadelphia Flyers simply refused to advance the puck through the neutral zone — the ultimate slowdown that the refs were uncertain how to handle.

Don’t worry, the Sharks don’t plan anything similar.

“We’re not going to change the way we play,” McLellan said. “We’re going to play our game and try to make it work against their system. We had some success against it here last year. We did some things that we thought would help us break it a little bit and we’ll try to incorporate that again.”

At the same time, McLellan said he thought that Tampa Bay sometimes gets an unfair knock.

“They’re an aggressive team. They’ll come after you,” McLellan said. “There’ll be other times where they sit back.”

******Look for Antti Niemi to face Lightning backup Mathieu Garon in net. And there was some uncertainty after the morning skate as to the availability of Martin St. Louis, who suffered a facial injury.

“I would be shocked,” Lightning coach Guy Boucher said. “So if I’m shocked, you should be. It was never the plan, and we want to go according to the plan. It was never for him to play tonight. It would take a small miracle for that to happen.”

St. Louis, however, seemed a little less certain that he’d be sitting this one out.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.